I open my mouth to respond, but an enormous lightning bolt snaps over us. It spreads across the sky like the veins of the gods, leaving the distinct taste of metal in the air. A deafening clap of thunder reverberates off the mountains. The wind and rain cease, and the clouds rotate around and around in a massive maelstrom, until a dark, glowing eye forms, staring at us from high over the mountaintops. The Mogadorians are just as mesmerized as we are. The wind kicks up again, and the dark clouds and the thunder and lightning come with it, slow at first, but quickly gaining speed, heading our way. A perfect storm, beautiful at its cataclysmic heart, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. All any of us can do is watch the thick clouds rolling towards us with a deep growl.

“What’s happening?” I scream over the gale force winds.

“I don’t know!” Crayton replies. “We’re going to need to find some cover!”

But he doesn’t move, and neither does anyone else. Héctor seems to have forgotten all about the pain of his wounds as he watches, too.

“Go!” Crayton finally yells, and then he spins around and fires on the Mogadorians to cover us as we run over a slight hill and then down into a valley. I see the dam on my right, which connects two lower mountains. It’s too far away to realistically believe we’ll reach it. Héctor’s face has turned white and he’s fading fast, and I start looking for a place to rest so I can heal him. Crayton’s gun falls silent. I look behind me fearing the worst, but he’s merely out of ammo. He chucks the gun over his shoulder and catches up to us.

“We’re not going to make it to the dam!” He yells. “Run to the lake!”

The rain starts up again as the four of us change direction. Bullets zip into our grassy footprints and ricochet off boulders. The clouds shift over us with a roar. A second later it’s as if we’ve gone under a bridge: the rain just stops. I look over my shoulder and see that just a few paces back, the rain still falls heavy and hard. The wind picks up significantly, and suddenly the Mogadorians behind us are stuck in the worst rainstorm I’ve ever seen. They completely disappear in a blur.

Our shoes slip over the sand on the shore, and Ella and Crayton dive into the water headfirst.

“I can’t do it, Marina,” Héctor says, stopping before his feet reach the water.

I drop my Chest and grab his arm and say, “I can fix you, Héctor. You can make it.”

“It wouldn’t make any difference. I don’t know how to swim.”